Anna Be.

I'm working my program at Weight Watchers , as you may know. I say "working my program" because that's the way they say it at Alcoholics Anonymous and other addiction programs. I've never been to AA, but I know enough from pop culture to see the similarities. We show up for our meetings every week (more often if you're really struggling), tell our personal tales, get stickers and trinkets for passing milestones. I'm ok with the analogy. So I'm working my program, tracking everything, using the motivational tools. But I have a dirty little secret. My secret is the junk I eat on the way home from work when I'm stressed or upset. You can find the evidence of my secret in my car. The garbage in my car at the end of the week tells the complete story of how bad my mood has been. This week you would find a KING SIZE Reese's wrapper and a bag from Sonic (with clearly visible tater tot residue). When I stopped at the grocery store Tuesday, the th...

Image via Wikipedia I went to the doctor today. I haven't been in months because I kept canceling appointments. Pretty much from June-December I pretended I didn't have diabetes. Now I guess I'm reaping that foolishness. I told the doc, "I'm going to Weight Watchers, I'm back on track, I still believe I can do this on my own." My doctor, always supportive but frank, said, "What is your goal?" I told him my goal is to lose 50 lbs by this fall. "That is a good goal, but only you can hold you accountable for it," he said. "You have to have a goal and a plan, but when a plan doesn't work out, you have a Plan B. Plan A is preferable, but if you don't reach your goal with Plan A, you move on to the backup plan. This is not a threat, but it is your second-best option. You have a progressive disease and you have been here since 2008 without much improvement." My doctor is not gruff or callous. But he is frank. Maybe you...

Last Sunday, Nick and I participated in the 3M relay half-marathon in Austin. He took the first leg -- 6.4 miles -- while I did the second leg -- 6.7 miles. The morning started about 6, still dark, very cold and windy. After an hour delay, the first half of the race finally started and I just had to wait for Nick to show up and tag me in. I was so far from confident. Thankfully, Nick was faster than either of us expected, giving me a good lead time. You may remember my last race experience, the San Antonio Rock N Roll Half Marathon in November. The heart-breaking truth of that race was that I was too slow to stay ahead of the sweepers and got pushed out at mile 6. I know I didn't get any faster since then, so I was expecting the same sort of thing. Did I mention it was pretty cold Sunday morning? Exercising in cold air tends to give me asthma. Half a mile into my leg of the race I was having an asthma attack, and everyone around me was passing me. I stopped at the portypot...

Preface: I signed up for this race back in the spring when I was training regularly and saw no reason I couldn't get ready in 7 months. There was no reason I couldn't have been ready, but I let my head get in the way. I have basically not trained at all in the last few months. Which brings us to... Image by veganstraightedge via Flickr 4:30 a.m. this morning: the alarm goes off. We ate our bagels and were ready to go at 5 a.m. We parked and took the shuttle to the start line, where by 6:30 we were among thousands of people waiting to use the portapotty. Nissa and I were in our corral at the start time (7:30), but we didn't actually get to the start until an hour later. No big deal, I knew it would be this way. I spent the first three miles trying to overcome my certainty that I could not do this, which Nissa really helped with, reminding me I get in my own way too much. Nick had told me yesterday this race would be a major psychological hurdle for me, and he was rig...

Image via Wikipedia This weekend, Nick and I accomplished a feat I would never before have imagined: we ate no junk food. Come on, everyone knows that weekends are meant for ice cream, cheeseburgers, and hot wings and forgetting all the good diet deeds you did the previous week. That's certainly the way we usually treat them. But as I wrote last week, I'm working on lowering my triglycerides, eliminating all animal products except fish. And this weekend has been a feast of seafood. Friday night we went out for Thai food, where I had some yummy shrimp thing. Then last night, Nick made a giant seafood paella , with shrimp, calamari, monkfish and mussels. Tonight I'm making salmon. Besides the distinct lack of any other meat, cheese or eggs, we are also avoiding processed carbs and sugar. Yeah, seriously. None of those yummy things in the last 4 days. But this is not torture when you have hummus and avocados, olives and asparagus. 26 more days to go... don't count...

Image via Wikipedia Before this morning I had never thought about how hard it is to construct a breakfast without animal products or refined carbs. A list of my regular favorites were immediately excluded: eggs, toast with butter, cereal, yogurt, cheese, croissants. I ended up with grapes and plain oatmeal (no milk, butter or sugar, of course). OK, that was adequate, but I need to do some better planning for future breakfasts. To clarify, I'm not your new Super-Vegan, out to save the world one salad at a time. This is part of a temporary experiment to see if I can go off all my prescription medications this year. I'm not going to discard those medications and go about business as usual. Instead, I'm taking one health issue at a time and replacing the medication with lifestyle changes that have been proven by research to improve the condition. First on the chopping block is my triglyceride-lowering medication, Trilipix. Yes, I'm 33 and on medicine for my triglyceri...

Image via Wikipedia I admit I'm continually renewing my outlandish health and fitness goals, from training for this half-marathon to endlessly trying to nail down the best nutrition program. I could see all these passing goals as a series of failures, but they are always, always informative. For example, I've learned in the last year that I feel healthiest when I exercise everyday and keep a food journal. I've learned that with just a little effort, I can see obvious fitness gains. And I need yoga everyday. What's the latest grand scheme? I hesitate to even say, but too much of my recent readings have been pointing to it: vegetarianism. I always thought my legacy of animal husbandry automatically disqualified me from being a good vegetarian, but now I'm sick. Chronic illness demands loyalty only to getting better. But let me explain why I've been approaching this as a possible solution... It started with a health book I bought and read over vacation: Qua...